Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

Sir Francis Edward Younghusband (1863-1942) was an English soldier, explorer, leader of an expedition to Lhasa, and the founder of the World Fellowship of Faiths.

Born into a family with strong military and Indian connections, Francis Younghusband duly entered the army and was posted to India in 1882. The lure of exploration in mountainous frontiers of strategic importance took him, on leave in 1886, across central Asia from Manchuria through Inner Mongolia and Sinkiang—regions where Russian interest was evident—to Kashmir, which he entered by the exacting Mustagh Pass. Accepted into the Foreign Service of the Indian government, he reconnoitered Russian activities in Hunza, where he crossed the extremely difficult, unexplored Saltoro Pass.

In 1891 Younghusband again encountered the Russians in the Pamir, and he was arrested and deported from territory claimed by them. On leave in 1895, he covered for the London Times the relief, from attack by local tribesmen, of the northwestern outpost of Chitral. When stationed there earlier, Younghusband had met George Curzon, traveling privately in Asia.

In 1903 Curzon, then viceroy of India, chose Younghusband to lead a mission to negotiate with the Tibetans, who were encouraging Russian overtures while contumeliously rejecting neighborly relations with India. Progress was inhibited by disagreement between the clear-sighted viceroy and the vacillating Balfour ministry in London; but, after prolonged Tibetan obstruction on the chilly Himalayan border, approval was given for a military expedition through unmapped mountain tracks and eventually to Lhasa itself.

In difficulty and danger Younghusband was a self-possessed, resolute, and fearless leader, but his humane nature was saddened by the losses inflicted on the illmatched Tibetans before they were overcome in two sharp engagements. Reaching Lhasa in August 1904, he was urged to conclude a treaty speedily and withdraw before winter. Slow communications with London precluded an exchange of views, and the favorable response of the Tibetans to Younghusband's generous integrity led him to include in the final terms two conditions advantageous to India but which went beyond his brief. They were reversed by London; and, through the animosity of the secretary of state for India, St. John Brodrick, who suspected he had flouted orders at Curzon's instigation, Younghusband though awarded a knighthood was also officially reprimanded. That injustice to a remarkable achievement was only redressed 17 years later by a subsequent administration. Meanwhile, showing no bitterness, Younghusband enjoyed four years as the Resident in Kashmir before retiring at the age of 47.

Thereafter, as president of the Royal Geographical Society, Younghusband, characteristically, promoted expeditions to Mt. Everest. But the dominant interest in the remaining years of his long life was a mystical idealism, present at all times, that inspired him to lead with vigorous but benign enthusiasm a crusade for worldwide religious unity. Younghusband was married and had one son and one daughter.

Further Reading

Younghusband's life and character are sensitively depicted in George Seaver, Francis Younghusband: Explorer and Mystic (1952). Peter Fleming, Bayonets to Lhasa (1961), gives a brilliant account of the Tibetan expedition. Both books contain lists of Younghusband's own published works.

Additional Sources

French, Patrick, Younghusband: the last great imperial adventurer, London: Harper Collins, 1994. □

Sir Francis Edward Younghusband 1863–1942, British explorer, b. India. He explored Manchuria in 1886. The following year he journeyed from China to India, crossing the Gobi desert and the Mustagh Pass (alt. c.19,000 ft/5,791 m) of the Karakorum range. Lord Curzon , the British viceroy in India, sent Younghusband with a military expedition into Tibet in 1904, where he forced a treaty upon the Dalai Lama, opening Tibet to Western trade. Later he surveyed the Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers and the upper reaches of the Indus. He three times tried and failed to scale Mt. Everest. His books include Heart of a Continent (1898), India and Tibet (1912), and Everest: the Challenge (1936).

Bibliography: See biography by G. Seaver (1953); P. Fleming, Bayonets to Lhasa (1961).

Younghusband, Sir Francis (1863–1942). Commissioned into the army, Younghusband transferred to the Indian Political Department in 1890. In its service, he visited Manchuria in 1886 and then made his way back to India in a pioneering journey across the Gobi Desert and the Karakoram Range. Service as a political officer in the Pamirs region included further exploration, as did his work as British commissioner to Tibet in 1902–4. His central Asian and Himalayan explorations led to his election as president of the Royal Geographical Society after his retirement in 1910 and he enthusiastically promoted Everest expeditions. Devout Christianity allied with an interest in Eastern mysticism also led him to promote understanding between different faiths.

Roy C. Bridges